October 2012Instructor: Maggie SteberTelling your story in the changing World of photography

The strange and beautiful thing about photography is that people let you into their lives. We walk in and ask people to be vulnerable before us, very quickly, and hope that somehow we make a connection and win a trust…all for a picture. We photographers are inspired by our subjects. It is they who remind us of the universal kinship we all share.As a photographer, I am changed by the experience of meeting people, getting to know them, forming a kind of collaboration with the subject that allows them greater voice.In fact, the experience of taking a photograph really becomes the treasure and the photograph is the evidence of it, a moment when someone opened up to show the world what’s inside.

Today we have print venues with magazines, newspapers and books although opportunities there are shrinking. There is also the gallery wall. The internet has opened countless possibilities for space and venues. But telling stories for the internet requires some of the same story-telling techniques and widens the possibilities for our photographic approach. Multi-media is the future, some say, but just putting photographs to audio does not necessarily make a good story. Nothing is better than a well-told, well-thought-out approach. That’s what our workshop is about and you will have to find a story or theme to work on and we will critique the work daily and also look at work by many other photographers in various arenas. It doesn’t matter if you are photographing an idea, or taking an artful approach, or a more traditional documentary approach. We can all be better messengers.

In this course, we will learn how to approach people, how to organize story ideas, how to pitch the stories. We will learn to make better pictures and to tell stories for web-based sites as well print. If you have been working on a long term project, this is an excellent ch oice for you as Maggie will help edit and sequence the work as she has during workshops at International Center of Photography in New York City and at the Foundry Workshop in Istanbul. You will leave a better, more thoughtful, more exciting photographer than when you walked in.